Our Japanese (ornamental) plum tree normally bears small red fruit in the Summer. These are quite delicious. This Spring it had a lot of flowers and now as usual the beginnings of the small fruit. But it also has, and for the first time that I've noticed, a lot of what looks like fuzzy whitish 2" long bean-like pods hanging from the branches. They are interspersed with the small plums. Can someone here tell me what these pods are, and perhaps what is the specific type of ornamental plum tree this is? -- thanks
Thanks, Daniel. Boy, not the sort of news I like to read. This morning I had another look at the tree and it seems the pods are proliferating. Some are now turning brown and mouldy. Leaves seem ok so far. But the branches are heavy with this latest rain and so are drooping to within a few feet of the ground. This tree has become a focal specimen/shade tree. It is also close to a domestic dwarf golden plum. And some of its new fruit are now becoming deformed (no pods though) ..but just a few so far. Big question, aside from removing the plants, what can be done to either solve this problem or at least keep it from spreading throughout the garden and potentially, the neighbourhood ? ** Not sure if this is related, but as a side note -- in the next garden bed is a large mature pieris japonica that is starting to die -- it's main brances are becoming brittle and leaves are shrivilling. That began 2 years ago from the top branches down. This year, the adjacent 6 foot rhodo has now got drooping yellow-green leaves and compared to the others, it doesn't look healthy either. However, it is flowering. Both have been fed the appropriate (high acid) fertilizer. Any ideas on what is happening here ..do you think these observations could be related to the subject plum?
Hmmm, I'm not an expert with pathogens, but what's in the link seems to provide good advice to me. If you can't live with it, remove the infected branches and apply copper fungicides at the appropriate time. I'll also suggest that it is possible that the infection will vary in extent from year to year depending on the spring weather. Perhaps someone else will chime in, who has some experience with it.
